The Philadelphia Experiment: The Naval Legend That Never Happened

USS Eldridge (DE-173) underway at sea, circa 1944

About 4 min readOn 28 October 1943, the destroyer escort USS Eldridge supposedly vanished from Philadelphia, teleported to Norfolk, and returned — with some of her crew fused into the hull. The story is one of America’s most persistent legends. The Navy’s logs say the ship was nowhere near Philadelphia that day.